Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, the man who has made billions with a “b” by sponging off of your taxpayer dollars, the man you can always find face-down at the government trough, is at it again.
Elon Musk now says that his whiz-bang glass solar roofing shingles will be, get this, cheaper than a “normal” roof, viz:
Musk told the crowd that he had just returned from a meeting with his new solar engineering team. Tesla’s new solar roof product, he proclaimed, will actually cost less to manufacture and install than a traditional roof—even before savings from the power bill. “Electricity,” Musk said, “is just a bonus.”
If Musk’s claims prove true, this could be a real turning point in the evolution of solar power. The rooftop shingles he unveiled just a few weeks ago are something to behold: They’re made of textured glass and are virtually indistinguishable from high-end roofing products. They also transform light into power for your home and your electric car.
“So the basic proposition will be: Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, lasts twice as long, costs less and—by the way—generates electricity?” Musk said. “Why would you get anything else?”
Make no mistake: The new shingles will still be a premium product, at least when they first roll out. The terra cotta and slate roofs Tesla mimicked are among the most expensive roofing materials on the market—costing as much as 20 times more than cheap asphalt shingles.
Much of the cost savings Musk is anticipating comes from shipping the materials. Traditional roofing materials are brittle, heavy, and bulky. Shipping costs are high, as is the quantity lost to breakage. The new tempered-glass roof tiles, engineered in Tesla’s new automotive and solar glass division, weigh as little as a fifth of current products and are considerably easier to ship, Musk said.
First off, glass is heavy. I’m not buying for one minute that they would be cheaper to ship than asphalt shingles, for example. And I can guarantee you that the “quantity lost to breakage” will be greater than with asphalt shingles. If our cell phones have taught us anything, it is that even the toughest “Gorilla Glass” is still … well … glass. So the first conclusion is that for Elon, a “normal” roof is either slate or terra-cotta tile … hey, he’s one of the elite, cut him some slack, he likely hasn’t lived in a house with an asphalt shingle roof or an aluminum roof in a while …
Will Elon’s roof be lighter than terracotta? Perhaps … but at this point we only have his word. But in any case, I greatly doubt that the largest cost of a slate roof is shipping … digging the slate out of the ground is a major cost.
Next, he’s conveniently omitted the cost of the batteries you’d need to make the system work, as well as the inverter. His 14KWhr “BerlinWall” batteries, or whatever they’re called, are far from cheap at $5,500 a pop … even if you can get by with only one battery, it is still more expensive by itself than a 40-year asphalt shingle roof. And if he is worried about breakage when shipping terra-cotta, shipping those babies won’t be either cheap or easy.
Also, he’s blowing smoke about lifetime. An asphalt shingle roof replacement will last forty years and cost something like $3.80 per square foot. A slate roof replacement will cost about five times that. Musk is claiming his solar panels will last longer than slate??? … how on earth would he even know if that were true? And what lasts longer than slate, it’s freakin’ stone, for heaven’s sake.
Next, firemen hate rooftop solar for a good reason. Think about having to punch a hole into a roof to get inside when the rest of the house is on fire … you do NOT want to be punching through glass solar panels hooked up to an inverter and a giant battery. In fact, if such a house is on fire, the battery is both a toxic hazard and an explosive hazard, while the roof is a no-go zone …
And because that is the case, your insurance costs will go up, something you’d never even consider with a normal roof.
Next, these solar shingles will be much more difficult to install, and thus much costlier, than a regular roof, involving electricians, special installers, and other high-priced folks.
Finally, the cost of solar panels has fallen to where it is now about a buck a watt, which works out to about $15 per square foot just for the panel itself. This raw material cost is more than the INSTALLED cost for slate roofing. And while Musk might reduce that, I’d be shocked if he cut it much. In fact, if Musk could reduce the square-foot cost of solar panels, why is he not making panels themselves with his new glass technology? I leave the answer to the reader.
Net result? It’s the usual story. When Musk’s lips are moving he either counting how much money he has screwed out of the American public, or he’s lying about his upcoming products … the only good news is that with the new Administration, we can only hope that his long gravy-train ride is over.
However, he is a very, very smart man, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find him cozening the public out of yet more money before he runs out of suckers. Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American greenoisie, and Musk has made a science out of playing to their worst fears.
Finally, do electric cars have an economically viable role to play in our transportation system? My answer, which may surprise some, is yes, quite possibly … but we should not make some guy insanely wealthy by subsidizing sparky cars which are NOT economically viable. If Musk is so damn smart, then let him prove it in the marketplace like anyone else. The government should not be in the business of supporting one solution over the other, no matter how wonderful the government’s intentions are, no matter if they are liberal or conservative, no matter what good outcome they blithely predict.
The solution is simple, and might even start soon. It is to
STOP SUBSIDIZING INEFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES THAT ARE NOT READY FOR MARKET!!
Regards to all,
w.
My Usual Request: Misunderstandings start easily and can last forever. I politely request that commenters QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH, so we can all understand your objection.
My Second Request: Please do not stop after merely claiming I’m using the wrong dataset or the wrong method. I may well be wrong, but such observations are not meaningful until you add a link to the proper dataset or an explanation of the right method.
The Math: At present, Musk has received $4.9 billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies. In return he has delivered cars that are so expensive that the wealthy buyers of such cars get their own personal subsidy in the form of a tax deductions.
At this point, are we supposed to say “Thanks, Elon”?
Meanwhile, in the developing world, WWFA says a village-sized water well costs about $8,000 to put in … so the money we’ve wasted on Musk and his sparky cars would buy clean water wells for more than half a million developing communities.
I doubt that folks in those communities would say “Thanks, Elon” if they knew about that Faustian bargain …
Hi Willis
Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t quote what I disagreed with; I’d seen other comments (only a few) suggesting the tone of the article was quite critical – but without quotes so thought mine would be ok.
Here are my disagreements and quotes. I feel I should point out I’ve been reading this blog for years, and usually find it balanced (but sceptical where possible) but I fell you’ve missed the mark. Certainly Musk fervently believes in climate change, but this shouldn’t affect any analysis of Tesla action.
“made billions with a “b” by sponging off of your taxpayer dollars”
“always find face-down at the government trough”
“we should not make some guy insanely wealthy by subsidizing sparky cars which are NOT economically viable”
“Musk has received $4.9 billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies”
OK, let’s say the above were written by me saying climate change was real. I would be overwhelmed by question regarding my sources. What are your sources?
My search finds data relating to their Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program loan:
“Tesla Motors has received approval for about $465 million in low-interest loans from the US Department of Energy to accelerate the production of affordable, fuel-efficient electric vehicles.” (20 April 2010)
Paid it all back, with interest, by 22. May 2013
The LA Times article regarding subsidies is too full of numbers to quote here, but I feel that there’s a major difference between Tesla getting a subsidy or incentive, available for any applicable company, vs a Tesla *specific* subsidy. Other companies would have tilted at these incentives, they’re not Tesla specific.
(http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html)
Additionally, Musk *specifically* responds to the article, basically saying ‘yes they take Govt money, no they’re not hiding it, yes it’s all legal, yes they pay it back when required’.
(http://www.businessinsider.com.au/elon-musk-has-always-been-completely-open-about-depending-on-government-money-2015-6)
So, my main disagreement is that you’ve singled out Tesla / Solarcity for applying for Government funding that were freely offered for a specific purpose. Others would / could have done it, yet your beef seems to be Musk specific.
Philosophically, I guess that you and I will have to disagree on subsidies, that is, while to the end consumer it looks like a Govt expense, really it’s just the Govt:
1) not taking as much money as it usually would.
or:
2) Fiscal support to develop [depending on which loan / grant subsidy]
a) States falling over themselves offering incentives (not taking as much money) to build a large factory providing local work, employment etc
b) Supporting the adoption of solar power (Govt supporting a beginning business)
c) Supporting the development of electric car being able to be produced / developed etc. ((Govt supporting new technology development)
I guess to sum up, nothing above was Musk specific, yet the article focused on him. An article about the evil of propping up failing businesses should be able to do so with either mentioning multiple names or mentioning none of them.
Cassandra.
About 5 years ago we installed a new roof. Asphalt. We’ll not need another. But thanks Willis for the purchase confirmation.
~~~~~
The Tesla M3 is a 4-door sedan expected to become available about this time next year – 2017.
Other (real) companies are beginning to sell something similar this year at about the same price and range (or better).
Four door sedans have less profit than the F-150 and SUV types. What will Tesla have to match the income stream of these in-demand vehicles?
I assume the companies coming on-line with their own EVs will no longer have to buy credits from Tesla Car Company. Anyone know?
{my bold below}
Tesla says: “The cost of a reservation is approximately $1,000 USD. Please see the table below for the amount in your local currency. Note that the reservation payment is fully refundable if you cancel your reservation.”
So, for $1,000 you get in a temporary line to buy a car much like a car you can buy soon from a company that will still be in business in 5 years. This does not compute.
Recall fondly the DeLorean DMC-12.
JFH said: “So, for $1,000 you get in a temporary line to buy a car much like a car you can buy soon from a company that will still be in business in 5 years. This does not compute.”
For a refundable deposit you get a place in line. But the federal $7500./car subsidy will run out early in the sales of the Model 3. (It phases out after a manufacturer sells 200,000 qualifying cars and the Model S and X qualify) I personally speculate that many of the place holders expect to sell their place in line to someone who wants to get a car before that subsidy runs out. The key is that the deposit is fully refundable, and Tesla meanwhile gets an interest-free loan of $300 million from those depositors.
Hummm, I think I need to invent solar shingle screen type protectors just in case of a hail storm and maybe a big UPS for the battery system? That may already be in the works with the flurry of regulations coming out of the current administration right now. Going to be a painful POTUS exit for the masses with what is happening and going unnoticed for the most part. Small taste http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-18/obama-hits-the-gas-in-race-to-regulate-before-trump-takes-reins
Hundreds of tiles, a thousand connections that will corrode, that is the major problem.
Yes, but consider all those green jobs that will be created to troubleshoot and fix the corrosion problems! /sarc
Traditional roofing is usually whatever suitable material is close to hand, more modern rooves use whatever is cheapest. Once people moved on from small houses with turf or thatched rooves. So for example slate is easily available in Wales and North West Scotland so traditional building techniques are for slate rooves. Northern Scotland had access to Caithness Sandstone/Slate so that was used for rooves and other purposes such as walls the old guy is speaking English, British East coast had access to Dutch Pantiles, rarely seen else where in the UK. It;s basically the same across Europe if you have traveled across Europe you be able to work out where you are from the old buildings. Here they are just moving on from terracotta tiles pretty much the same as used by the Romans to interlocking ones.
People have until it became profitable to put up solar panels replaced like with like as it was normally cheapest and easiest to obtain. Possibly in recent years using cheaper materials which look like the original.
So in Western Europe most rooves will be able cope with the weight. All the other problems still remain however.
i am informed that germany requires 7 years of apprenticeship to be allowed to contract roofing – only the shingle/tiles (illegal to change a rafter)
heh- that makes the cost freakin outrageous. in the usa – the instructions are on every bundle of asphalt shingles so if can read and work a hammer and knife – you just do it – no permission required.
Electric cars are about as green as the space shuttle – which was only green in the sense of naive.
Tools that are designed to do everything, usually end up doing nothing well.
I must say that I have deep respect for the serial entrepreneur Elon Musk, so I would like to express some words in his defense.
First of all, he made his fortune in X.com and PayPal and then played a large role in the founding of SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity.
Each of these are remarkable companies. SpaceX is the first private company to send a satellite into geostationary orbit. Delivering satellites to lower orbits has become a routine and they do it far cheaper than their competitors do, and they make money on it.
Before Tesla, all mass produced electric cars were odd-looking vehicles with low range. Tesla has proved that an electric car can be a car the customers want to have, not because it is zero emission vehicle, but because the performance and comfort are exceptionally.
Both my oldest son, Niklas, and I have bought EV, and they are always the family members first choice because they are the most enjoyable cars to drive. If you get used to it, you do not get back to noisy, slow and fuming vehicles.
I think these roof tiles may have a similar transformation on solar roof as Tesla had on EV. Solar roof will no longer look like some odd experiment you are conducting on your roof. Solar tiles look just as pretty as normal tiles.
As for the economy of solar roof, I went through it with a colleague of mine, Gullbrand, who invested in ordinary solar roof panels last spring. The business case was not super profitable, but it was not very bad either. It is profitable over a 20-year timespan if we presuppose that the electricity tariff will continue to rise as it has done up to now. Moreover, we live in Norway, which is 60-degree northern latitude, and the panels will be out of production in the wintertime when they are covered with snow. If it is close to profitable here, anywhere else should be better.
An expensive battery is not required; the house owner sell the excess energy back to the grid.
The main reason why I have not followed Gullbrands example is that I am not so happy with having this panels mounted on top of my existing roof. I think it is much better solution to integrate the solar panel in the tiles exactly as SolarCity has done. This solution should be more economically as you meet two ends with one action; the tiles both serves as traditional roof tiles and as solar panels.
Do Mr. Musk oversell his product? Well yes probably, but I think we should give him some slack, he is an enthusiast making bold promises, but he has also proven that he is able to deliver remarkable products.
See SpaceX price compared to some competitors:
http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/24/how-much-does-it-cost-to-launch-a-satellite.aspx
/Jan
>>An expensive battery is not required; the house owner
>>sell the excess energy back to the grid.
That does not add up at all. If the grid goes Green, then the grid will not have much electricity to sell at night either. Unless the grid has a battery, or fossil fuel backup. This all comes back to the same old problem with renewables – how do you overcome the intermittancy? Either domestic, or national intermittancy?
And if the grid has fossil backup, or nuclear backup, then what is the point of the renewables – if the backup has to be burning and turning all the time? And paying back its capital costs all the time? You have just quintupled the cost of your electricity, for no gain. And your car is still not emissions free.
Actually, I would rather that Willis did an analysis of how much energy a solar roofed house could generate per anum, in relation to the normal household usage. When Prof MacKay in the UK made a similar calculation, the results were not favourable at all. See booklet “Renewable Energy Without the Hot Air”.
Ralph
That depends a lot on where you are living. Around where I live, almost all electricity are generated by hydropower, and that is easily stored. The power provider simply hold back the water in the magazines when the customers produce their own power, and release it for production when they need the hydropower.
It can more challenging other places, but hydropower is not the only source that can be used as an alternative when the sun does not shine. The need for storage can be minimized by combining many different sources in a large grid. As one example, wind energy may be provided when the sun does not shine, and hydro may take the slack when we have neither sun nor wind.
The estimated annual production on my colleagues’ house is 3.5 MWH
Well, it depends on where you live…
Perhaps demand is greatest during the time when solar operates… more power is frequently used during the middle of the working day than at other times (there may be an additional peak in the early evening).
solar delivers on that extra demand in those cases.
If you have very good solar resource -over 300 days of excellent solar resource as in India or Australia – it is very likely a domestic user can get all they need from solar plus a battery.
but fossil fuel back up does not need to be running all the time -solar (and wind) are sufficiently predictable to allow you to ramp it up as solar output declines. Even better, fast responding grid scale batteries can take the load during a rapid transition as the sun sets, allowing gas plant to be brought on line more efficiently.
solar is unlikely to be the only renewable energy available – wind is most available when solar isn’t
Tesla stock recommendation: SELL
“SELL. The current P/E ratio is negative, which has no meaningful value in the assessment of premium or discount valuation, it simply displays that the company has negative earnings.”
https://www.thestreet.com/r/ratings/reports/analysis/TSLA.html
SolarCity net losses for five consecutive years
http://x-fin.com/analysis/SCTY
SpaceX is profitable according to Musk. I guess it makes money on insurance claims. His cheap rockets keep on exploding. Great businessman!
By the way, like SolarCity, Tesla has net losses for five consecutive years
Seems baggage can go up on a SpaceX but people? Not me or mine — thank you very much, but no.
From the Wall Street Journal, but you can find elsewhere
“New details have emerged about warnings issued by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration advisory panel regarding potential fueling hazards on SpaceX’s future manned rockets.
The panel’s safety concerns, which were reported on earlier by The Wall Street Journal, focus on possible dangers stemming from plans by entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to fuel rockets while astronauts are strapped into capsules loaded on board.“
“Seems baggage can go up on a SpaceX but people?”
The space shuttle killed its crew about one time in sixty, so NASA can’t really lecture anyone about safety. And now they’re saying they would rather have ground crew standing around a fully-fuelled rocket where they’ll die it if explodes, than put astronauts on top of it before it’s fuelled, where they have an escape system that would carry them away from an exploding rocket.
Does not compute, Will Robinson.
I do agree, though, that SpaceX seem to have fallen into the ‘efficiency at any cost’ trap that crippled so many previous space ventures. The recent explosion appears to have been due to the liquid oxygen solidifying because they’re using ultra-low temperatures to stuff as much oxygen as possible into the tanks before launch. Had they stuck to conventional rocket oxidizer temperatures, it wouldn’t have happened, but their payload would be a little less.
“Seems baggage can go up on a SpaceX but people?”
The space shuttle killed its crew about one time in sixty, so NASA can’t really lecture anyone about safety.”
Well, Musk hasn’t launched any human into orbit yet, so we don’t know what his success rate is, now do we.
One of the shuttle launches that cost humans their lives happened because the shuttle was launched outside its design parameters. Had the NASA administrator waited a day or two to launch, when it was warmer, the shuttle would have launched without a problem, so your “one in sixty” would be one in 135.
In both cases, we know what caused the shuttle to be destroyed. In Space-X’s case, we don’t know what the problem is right now. If the space shuttle were available today, I would certainly trust it over Space-X. How about you?
“Well, Musk hasn’t launched any human into orbit yet, so we don’t know what his success rate is, now do we.”
We know the Falcon 9 has a success rate of around 90% so far, and the crews would have survived the two failures. Without political meddling, like the kind that killed the Soyuz crew who suffocated due to a demand that they fly without suits so the USSR could beat NASA to having three astronauts in space, it’s actually really, really hard to be less safe than the space shuttle.
“ad the NASA administrator waited a day or two to launch, when it was warmer, the shuttle would have launched without a problem”
And if my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle. Had Challenger not been lost that day, it would have happened to another shuttle sooner or later.
Columbia was almost lost on its first flight when the body flap was pushed well beyond its design limits by the backblast from the SRBs; John Young has said that, if he’d known what had happened, he’d have aborted the mission and ejected. It would have been lost during reentry if there were no humans on board, because the aerodynamics turned out to be different to those programmed into the computer, and it would probably have burned up if the crew hadn’t taken over.
STS-27 was almost lost just two flights after Challenger, when the heatshield burned through at a spot which, fortunately, had tough enough structure to survive the heat and still land. They crew have said that, when they saw the heatshield damage caused during the launch, they thought they were all going to die… and they almost did. NASA didn’t fix the foam shedding problems, so we lost Columbia years later.
The shuttle got lucky at least as many times as it got unlucky.
“How about you?”
I’d take a Dragon any day, because, despite the Falcon-9 being less reliable than most current launchers, you don’t just die when something goes wrong.
Oh, and, while there’s no official word, SpaceX have essentially said that the explosion was due to oxygen solidifying in the carbon-fibre wrap around the helium tanks, then cutting through the fibres when the metal liner expanded and compressed the carbon-fibre as the helium was loaded. As I said above, they seem to be pushing things too hard to try to push up the payload to save a few bucks (ok, quite a few million bucks if you can launch on a Falcon 9 vs a Falcon Heavy)… and, like the shuttle engines that were far less robust than designed because they were pushed to run at higher thrust levels than they were designed for, they’re suffering for that choice.
But, most likely, they just have to change the loading procedure to ensure the oxygen can never solidify in future.
“I’d take a Dragon any day, because, despite the Falcon-9 being less reliable than most current launchers, you don’t just die when something goes wrong.”
You don’t want to land in a Falcon-9. Five of 11 landing attempts crashed and burned. That’s the worst record in the history of rocketry
“You don’t want to land in a Falcon-9.”
Uh, no. That’s why I said ‘Dragon’.
“Five of 11 landing attempts crashed and burned. That’s the worst record in the history of rocketry”
It’s also the best record in the history of rocketry, since no-one else has ever landed the first stage of an orbital launcher before (and, no, parachuting shuttle SRBs into the sea doesn’t count).
MarkG commented: “…It’s also the best record in the history of rocketry, since no-one else has ever landed the first stage of an orbital launcher before …..”
Not true. Blue Origin, by Jeff Bezos, beat him to the “first” spot and has done more than Musk since. That doesn’t diminish the accomplishment, just your claim 🙂
Nobody else attempted to land a rocket on its tail because they know it’s risky and costly in terms of fuel. Elon portrays himself a brilliant engineer and fans adore the image. Even his failures are advertised as “technological breakthrough”
“Oh, and, while there’s no official word, SpaceX have essentially said that the explosion was due to oxygen solidifying in the carbon-fibre wrap around the helium tanks, then cutting through the fibres when the metal liner expanded and compressed the carbon-fibre as the helium was loaded.”
Yeah, that might be the problem *this* time.
The good thing about the shuttle launch system was most of the bugs were already worked out of it. Can’t say that for Space-X or any other future launcher at this time. Lots of things can go wrong on a launch vehicle.
It was an extremely foolish action to give up the space shuttle launch system. We will have gained nothing by building a new heavy-lift vehicle, when we already had one, and our space program will have lost billions of extra dollars and decades of progress in the process. Unbelievably shortsighted.
We have a bunch of fools running our space program and have had for many years. That’s the problem.
Private enterprise will eventually surpass government involvement in space, but there is no telling when all that’s going to take place. If we had the shuttle launch system up and running right now, we could actually begin on a meaningful space development program that would enhance the private sector, too.
Too late now, we’ll just have to start all over and waste another decade or two preparing. Unless someone has $10 billion they want to loan me. Then I’ll buy the shuttle launch system myself and start my own space development program, and I’ll beat everyone of the competition to the punch. I guarantee it, just give me $10 billion. 🙂
he made a couple of hundred million with X and PayPal not the billions he is currently worth …
His fortune comes from the inflated stock price of Tesla, which is losing money. He has to continue the media hype to keep the stock price up. It’s the classic game of “pump and dump.” At some point before it becomes evident he cannot deliver on his promises, he has to sell his stocks at inflated price before it tanks
Your over all points are on target. Musk does appear to be operating a huge public tax money-to-Musk billion$ business model. Roofs in the regions of the country hit by frequent serious hail storms, by the way, see roofs of all sorts last much less than 30 years. The fire safety issue is disturbing. Have fire safety standards been applied to solar roof systems?
>>BFL
>>Asphalt shingle roof at 40years?? I’ve not seen a standard
>>3 tab last past 20 (pushing it) and most are15 years.
I have never understood American ‘throw-away’ housing. I understand throw-away Coke-cans, because of the difficulty in collecting, cleaning, reusing them. But throw-away housing made of plywood and ashphalt??
In the UK we are still recycling slate tiles made 150 years ago (Welsh slate is best). While the average glazed terracotta tile is good for a century. And the glazing is, errr, glass. Glazed teracotta is big in Europe, not so much in the UK. And the average conctrete-framed flat with a concrete roof down in the Meditteranean regions, will not collapse into splinters at the first tornado. And all of the north of Europe has tripple glazed windows, while all I saw in the rural midwest of the US was single-glaze.
Why does ‘rich ‘ America still have Third World plywood housing with coated cardboard roofs??
Ralph
wood framing is cheap, fast and durable, almost trivial to remodel, upgrade or repair.
one man can build a small house by himself in a matter of weeks – with his own savings.
in europe where everything has been owned for 1000 years, good luck finding a cheap lot.
americans, traditionally, are independent and raising a family when they reach the age of majority – they haven’t, historically, housed 3 generations of family in one dwelling.
permanence has also not been an american tradition because mobility – something not possible in eu because there are no frontiers.
in fact, liberty is impossible without frontiers.
most of the great big usa is uninhabited.
things may be different now, but that’s how it used to be for a couple hundred years.
in america, contractors do entire subdivisions of hundreds of homes – and they do it in a summer.
such growth was supported by vast wealth and cheap land –
the ability of a person to own land was a unique draw for the settlers because that was simply impossible to do in the old country
>>one man can build a small house by himself in a matter
>>of weeks – with his own savings.
Indeed, that is what I said.
This is what they build in Africa, and it is called a mud-hut or a hovel. Why is the world’s (supposed) richest nation, still building hovels made of sticks and plywood? Hovels that fall apart at the first breath of wind from tornado?
Perhaps this is what Trump meant by ‘rebuilding US infrastructure’. Perhaps the US will at last get some 20th century building codes and standards.
R
well, yeah. most people in the use don’t really have any real need to live in a hurricane shelter.
but if you happen to live in an earthquake zone, wood framing holds up better than masonry..
you may try to characterize wood framed houses as hovels, but that’s really far off the mark.
there are no multimillion dollar hovels.
gnomish, I think R is devolving into a troll. DNFTT.
We use stick frame houses because they are easy to build and cheap to buy and own. We like a lot of people owning their homes. Stick frame housing is an important part of that. And when land use changes, they are also easy to dispose of allowing owners to repurpose the land. And as for tornadoes, study a bit more. Europe, due to geography and climate, gets few if any tornadoes of any significance. If you did, you wouldn’t make claims about buildings standing up to them. They don’t.
“If you did, you wouldn’t make claims about buildings standing up to them. They don’t.”
Several decades ago, I had occasion to drive around downtown Xenia, Ohio looking for a parking place. I noticed that the bricks in the courthouse changed color a couple of feet off the ground. The reason, of course, was that their 1974 tornado demolished the building which was then rebuilt using bricks from a different source.
“Europe, due to geography and climate, gets few if any tornadoes of any significance. If you did, you wouldn’t make claims about buildings standing up to them. They don’t.”
Yeah, that Welch slate won’t help them with a tornado. The tornado will blow them away, tiles, and triple-glazed windows, and all.
My God, this is one of the most ignorant and overly generalized posts I have read in a long time.
Throw-away housing?, third world plywood?, single-glazed windows?, coated cardboard roofs?.
>>My God, this is one of the most ignorant and overly
>>generalized posts I have read in a long time.
Except that the trail of matchwood after every US tornado would strongly suggest that I am correct in my assessment.
Conversely, living in a standard European concrete apartment complex (four stories), if we had an F5 roll through I think the worst we would suffer is the TV dishes all disappearing. All the cars, for instance, are underground, as they are in the vast majority of European apartments (less so in the UK, because the UK also suffers from cheapo housing.)
Why not admit it – the majority of non capital-city housing in the US is substandard in comparison to Europe.
R
Masonry/concrete looks very strong, but does not do well in earthquakes unless so heavily reinforced it is largely a steel cage with masonry/concrete decoration. Frame does do well in high winds if one properly figures and installs shear walls and roof ties.
“Conversely, living in a standard European concrete apartment complex (four stories), if we had an F5 roll through I think the worst we would suffer is the TV dishes all disappearing. ”
heh- well there we have it. ralfellis- an apartment is not a home. it’s a very important distinction in america.
If you don’t care about cost or comfort, sure, go ahead build with nothing but concrete.
PS: Most 4 story structures that I am familiar with are concrete. Regardless of their purpose.
In the UK we are still recycling slate tiles made 150 years ago (Welsh slate is best). While the average glazed terracotta tile is good for a century.
Much of the US is earthquake county where tiles or slate tend to become flying missiles in a severe quake. Wood frame has its problems — inflamability and termites to name two. But it stands up well to earth motion. Building codes in California forbid unreinforced masonry structures that probably look near eternal to your eyes. They did very badly in the 1933 Inglewood-Long Beach earthquake. Even reinforced structures have been known to fail during quakes — e.g the Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland, CA http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQWdvuP5lgKKHRQb2lpLQ06vwEyM9nv05nQsHnJXD7nexku6_3vpbR4UsLZMA
Slate is rarely used for roofing here in Vermont despite being readily available. The reason is that snow loads over a meter are best removed lest another heavy snowfall collapse the roof. So almost all roofs are either metal — durable and snow doesn’t stick but noisy — or asphalt shingle which has some friction and only rarely sends homeowners off into space and thence to the emergency room.
My father did construction in the UK. I remember back in the 80s or 90s he started complaining about how new build houses were abandoning the traditional methods in favour of timber framing. Just because they look like they’re made of bricks doesn’t mean they are.
Ah, the Guardian says it was a fad in the 80s that went away due to bad press, but 25% of new UK houses are timber-framed, as are most new houses in Germany:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/12/prefabs-britain-timber-frame-persimmon
I believe another reason for timber houses in North America is the massive temperature variation over the year. Our house sees a difference of 80C between the worst summer and winter temperatures. Wood should handle that better than bricks.
For a possible (foreign?) terminology issue. In the US, (large) timber framed buildings are post-and beam with large timber trusses, while “stick built” uses nominal 2x framing with sheetgood (plywood or OSB) sheathing. Which do you refer to, MarkG?
Don’t really know the difference, I’m afraid; my father worked in construction, not me. But the Guardian article sounds like they’re building pretty much the same way they do here in Canada.
I asked, as I recall a conversation with one of my brother’s German in-laws deploring the fact the house my brother was buying had only two inch thick corner posts. I tried to explain that in common stick framing there are no corner posts.
My cousin lives in a 400? year old stone house in Farnham, England. 5 foot tall doors, 6 or 7 foot high ceilings, surface mount wiring, ugly plastered walls, fireplace in every room for heat, cold, damp, hard to seal. A registered historical land mark I believe. But thanks anyway Ralf, I’ll take my wood frame house with underfloor heating from a water to water heat pump back up propane air and a modern masonry wood fireplace using wood off my own land that provides most of my winter heat over that cold old English coal fired hand me down any day of the week.
Happy Holidays.
Wayne Delbeke
Now you mention it, a friend’s parents still live in a 14th century house in the UK. The walls are made of sticks, clay and cowpats.
As with many of these gimmick technologies, there doesn’t seem to be enough thought about why people would buy the product. It seems like it would fail all ends of the market apart from a very small niche.
As Willis points out this isn’t a product for the cheaper end of the market. Even for a tile or slate roof, by far and away the biggest cost is installation. That this combines electricity and roofing, the job would require even more specialised staff – read expensive. Would the product cover a whole roof or just sections? That begs the question of how to deal with tiles that need to be cut? Would the areas with non solar tile look the same? If not the roof would look weird. From an aesthetic point of view the tile itself looks plastic and cheap and part of the reason for using slate or terracotta if for its visual appearance. It’s one thing to save the planet but another entirely to spoil the look of your very expensive home! /sarc
Durable the material might be but how about the electrical nature of it? It seems like the roof would need to be repaired and replaced far more often than a traditional one. Slates will last over hundreds of years and even my concrete tiles last at least 70. As I can attest, being re-roofed is a big headache and in some ways the cost is the smallest part of that. Just getting someone who will leave you with a leak proof roof is what you hope for most. Having to make sure the solar element is still functioning too would be one hardship too many. Imagine someone thumping about on your roof trying to find the faulty tile and then saying they can no longer get the spares but leaving several tiles cracked where the ‘durable’ tiles couldn’t stand up to being walked on by a clumsy roofer with grit embedded boots.
. And that’s all assuming your local bylaws will let you use such a new material and your insurance company will over you once you’ve got it.
I’m all for new technologies but they must address the mundane issues before saying they’re viable. Electric cars are the same. They have key flaws that preclude them from being useful to the majority. The current plan seems to be trying to follow the IT model, where people put up with endless faults and shortcomings and kept coming back for the upgrade. They key difference was we wanted computers and software. Those things were truly revolutionary. Solar power and electric vehicles are just weedy alternatives to the current options.
http://bit.ly/1bf8ihi
Solar roofs and firemen
That is a damning indictment of the entire solar rooftop industry. How dare they sell products that are not compliant with normal and reasonable fire safety standards? What a scam.
You can believe Elon Musk if his cheap rockets stop exploding. He plans to colonize Mars LOL
One word, kids. Metal. Roofing. OK, two words. I have been putting metal roofing on all manner of structures for 20 years. The only downside? Noise level when cutting pieces with circular saw, angle grinder or sawzall. Power shears take care of that! Musk trots out this solar power shingle idea and people are supposed to just accept it without real world testing, and plenty of idiots will.
For my home, a flat roofed house, we installed a TPO roof, fully adhered to 2″of insulation. My cooling bill dropped over 50%. The roofing material is very durable and has 10′ seams that are welded together. It reflects heat so well that on a July sunny day in Texas the roof is not uncomfortably hot to the touch. And it is affordable. That is better than anything Musk is offering.
Here in western PA metal, in various configurations/styles, is very popular, has really grown during the last 5-8 years. The wide range of color options is just icing on the cake, as it were. Properly installed metal is very resistant to high wind. Hell, even shoddily installed it is resistant to high wind. Flat roof systems are a different animal, all together. I have done rubber and vinyl sheet roofing and standing seam sheet metal on commercial buildings, have moved away from doing such work. Closing in on getting old, like to stay closer to the ground.
Willis, I’m not a big Elon Musk fan, but I think perhaps you should give him some credit for his ability to put together complex design and manufacturing efforts that produce sophisticated products that are competitive and in some cases quite impressive. That’s not easy to do. But I think you’ve nailed what is perhaps his greatest weakness. IMO one can’t believe a single word the man says. That’s perhaps not an issue with Spacex where his competitors are not exactly paragons of honesty and the customers expect to be lied to. May not be an issue with his cars either. He is competing with the likes of GM and Volkswagen. But still …
I didn’t write this comment to praise or denigrate Musk. I just thought that any discussion of home renewables is incomplete without a link to Tom Murphy’s blog http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/ I think his numerous articles on home solar and his electric car probably sum up pretty well what someone depending on solar energy can expect to encounter. Bottom line. Solar today is usable. If you are willing to accommodate its extensive limitations. But it probably won’t save all that much money. If any. And, above all. Batteries suck.
“you should give him some credit for his ability to put together complex design and manufacturing efforts that produce sophisticated products that are competitive” ??? Yes the Tesla is complex and sophisticated but hardly competitive … and SolarCity is none of those things and SpaceX blows sh*t up way too often …
The only reason why his products are competitive is because the government is picking up most of the tab.
Same old same racket-
http://arena.gov.au/project/integrated-pv-solar-roofing/
And all this time I thought the government considered a “shovel-ready project” one that was one ready to roll right now, not one that needed to be buried! 😎
I have been a custom home builder for over 40 years. Most of those years have been in Virginia. Since most of my building career has been in Virginia, many of my jobs involved Historic renovations. I have seen about every type of construction, building materials, and of course different roofing materials.
In the US, as I’m sure in every other parts of the world, you have different levels of competency, craftsmanship, and quality. (Everybody should read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”).
We have the so-called tract home builders and also, what I call the briefcase builders. These are people who have probably never picked up a hammer or saw in their life, yet they build houses. They subcontract every portion of the house. Then you have the custom home builder, such as myself, who have devoted their lives to mastering the art of building, from the footings/foundation, to the framing of the structure, to the final interior woodwork.
Since this discussion is about roofs, I will put in my 2 cents worth. I live on the Chesapeake Bay. We have hot and humid summers, beautiful springs and falls, and humid cold winters (and yes we get about 20″ of snow where I live). We also have an average of 46″ of rainfall a year. We also get hurricanes and Nor’easters. So, our climate is a great test for any roofing material. I will list the materials by their longevity in my climate:
Asphalt shingles. I’m talking the basic 3-tab asphalt shingles. I have never used a standard 3-tab asphalt shingle, ever. They are the least expensive and only last about 15 years.
Cedar Shakes. This is one of the worst roofs for our climate. The shakes themselves do not shed water; it depends on the tar paper that is interwoven between each course. In a sense it’s a decorative roof. It’s also an expensive roof and requires a lot of maintenance. Maybe 20 years. (When people replace a shake roof, they never use shakes again).
Cedar shingles. These are the machine cut wood shingles. Thinner than shakes and a much less rustic look. They are what we call a triple coverage roof, I would have to diagram it, because it’s hard to explain. It is a very waterproof and wind resistant roof. You cannot place wood shingles over plywood; the roof sheathing cannot be solid, so you have to use what’s called skip-sheathing. No tar paper is used on a wood shingle roof, because it has to breath from the underside, that’s the reason for the skip sheathing. I have seen wood shingles place on a plywood sheathed roof, and since they can’t breath from the underside, they end up curling and splitting, and a very reduced lifespan (maybe 20 years). Properly installed and maintained, can be good for 50 years.
Architectural Shingles. These are similar to the old 3-tabs, but much, much better. They are actually asphalt impregnated fiberglass. This is the most popular roof today because they hold up well in just about any climate. There are many grades and thicknesses available, and this will determine the warranty, cost, and life expectancy of a properly installed roof. Also very resistant to high winds. They typically come in 30-year, 40- year, and now even 50-year. Properly installed, they will more than meet those expectations.
(I just visited a house I had built in 1990. We had installed a 40-year architectural shingle roof on it. After 26 years, the roof still looks like it was installed yesterday. My house has 30-year architectural and after 13 years still looks great).
Standing seam metal roofs. This is a very popular roof in Virginia. These are different than your manufactured metal roofs. Manufactured metal roofs are similar, but they only have one crimp on the seams or a piece that slips over the seams to lock the panels together. Each panel of a true standing seam roof is made out of a flat piece of metal and two upright flanges are bent on each panel. Each panel is approximately 16″ wide and they go from the very bottom to the ridge. A special tool is then used to do a double crimp at each seam. It’s all handwork. They are also double crimped to a starter piece at the bottom and sides, double crimped at the ridge and also at hips. Extremely wind resistant and virtually waterproof.
Galvanized. You don’t see too many galvanized metal roofs anymore, as they require painting every 5-10 years. If not properly maintained, they can rust. 75 years.
Copper. It’s actually a hard copper alloy These start out looking like a shiny new penny, but within weeks, they start developing a beautiful patina. Personally, I think it is the most beautiful roof. No maintenance required. Expensive (around $12.00/sq. ft., depending on the price of copper at the time). 100+ years.
Slate. We have a few slate quarries in Virginia, so material costs aren’t too bad, but still very expensive. A slate roof, because of it’s weight requires beefed up rafters. Very labor intensive…probably the most expensive roof to install. Also very expensive to repair a broken shingle and they do break from time to time.
A beautiful roof. I have seen original slate roofs on houses built in the early 1700’s. 250+ years.
Clay tiles. I have no experience with this roof. We don’t have much Spanish or Mediterranean architecture in Virginia. It would stick out like sore thumb.
By the way, all the roofs I mentioned are CO2 proof.
Years ago when we were having some problems with acid rain, that was hard on copper roofs. But since we have that under control now, copper roofs are super long lasting. If you can afford a standing seam copper roof, it’s the best roof out there.
AH
Question for Willis: Does the $4.9 B include SpaceX? If it does, that portion needs to be subtracted from the total, as he is providing a product / service for a price not unlike United Launch Alliance does with the Delta 4 and LochMard does with the Atlas V. Cheers –
No. It excludes the $5.5B SpaceX received in govt contracts. This, I think, is the original source for the $4.9B subsidies:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
Got it. Thanks for the reference. And it is LochMart rather then LochMard. Sheesh. Cheers –
What roofs? Aren’t we all supposed to live in high density apartment buildings, according to eco-zealots?
In the SF Bay area their was a news story that 2 firefighters had experienced pain in their arms after spraying PV panels with a fire hose.
Gnomish provides a quote above without attribution. The complete paragraph is:
“Straight off the bat, it needs to be stated that not all roofs are made the same, and not all roofers charge the same prices. Depending on the type of your roof, geographic location, and the company or weekend warrior you choose to hire, the total installed cost of a composition shingles roof could vary between $2.75 to $7.50 per square foot installed. — That’s anywhere from $275 for a low bid (such as a bid from a weekend warrior or storm chaser who works without any liability insurance and does not have any worker’s comp.) to $750 per square for a fully warrantied job completed by a high-end exterior remodeling company. A square is equal to 100 square feet. An average roof size is about 1,700 square feet.”
http://www.roofingcalc.com/roof-replacement-cost/
“Could vary” is meaningless. The national average on a typical residential new roof with asphalt shingles is about $4 a square foot.
The Consumer Report estimate is problematic in a number of ways, but the most important is that the numbers in their table are simply wrong. A roofing industry professional looking at the table would immediately see that the clay tile estimate is about half what it should be, and the asphalt shingle estimate is about 40-50% high. C’mon, folks. Would asphalt shingles have half the market if clay tile was cheaper and concrete tile was cheaper yet? I looked, but could not find any other reference that claims clay tile is cheaper than asphalt shingles.
you’re right on everything you said.
it also reinforces the point that tesla can’t do the shingaling like they do.
Teslas make sense for Silicon Valley and other urban sprawl commuting . The tiles may have some rational market somewhere . ( Here in the Front Range , metal is taking over . )
And here , where the diurnal variation is typically 20c and what’s needed is supplemental heat , never ac , direct thermal capture and storage systems make far more sense , even if not sexy .
http://cosy.com/Science/NY_WPtemps.jpg
In any case the message is : STOP SUBSIDIZING.
Lightness is not an asset in a roof in Tornado country.
This seems a pretty accurate summary of the whole Musk phenomenon.
Tesla
May 2016
Devonshire Research Group, LLC
Tesla is not a car, battery, or tech company; it is an experimental financial services company and should be regulated as such.
Asphalt tiles? Only in America, I think. We do not have them in the British Isles, to my knowledge.
We call them, shingles. They have tiny colored gravel glued to the exposed side.
No, not used in the UK on house roofs…
You might get an asphalt flat roof on a garage, but roofs are very much all tile/slate (or thatch!)
£17.25 per square metre from Wickes although they do say they are for gardensheds only.
That’s what I was thinking. Never see them used on a house in the UK.
Elon Musk has done things like build a far better car than Mercedes or even Toyota and a rocket than lands on a tiny rolling barge. For those reasons he deserves enormous respect. If he were just another big bragging politician squandering billions on programs that have no redeeming value, that’d be different.
He has ‘Buillt’ FA apart from bullsh*t on the back of taxpayers.